This is the second tip in 11 money-saving tips in 11 days from Coupons.com, my favorite source of printable coupons. Kim Danger is the Family Savings Expert for Coupons.com and she has written these 11 money-saving tips to help you cut costs in your household and save up to $10,000 a year. Here is the second tip from Kim Danger:
Eat Out Less
“The average American household spends about $2,533 per year on food eaten or prepared away from home. Changing your restaurant habits a little bit can help you save a lot without giving it up entirely. Once a month, have friends over for a potluck dinner. When you do cook, make a double batch and freeze half to eat later when you simply don’t feel like cooking to avoid the temptation to get take-out. Instead of heading to your favorite restaurant on the weekend, eat out during the week when there are more specials such as Happy Hours and Kids Eat Free nights – which are typically Monday or Tuesday. Look for coupons online and on sites like Restaurant.com. Cut your budget back by just $25 a week and you’ve saved $1300 per year.
Total Savings: $1300 per year”
-Kim Danger, Family Savings Expert for Coupons.com
More “Eat Out Less” Tips from Freebies 4 Mom
We can all use more help in spending less money on eating out (including me), so here are a few tips! Share more tips that you have in the comments.
* Keep all your restaurant and fast food coupons with you in the car so that if you do need to eat out, you’ve got your coupons available to use. The Entertainment Book is a great source of coupons for local restaurants, find out how I got my Entertainment Book for free in this ongoing deal.
* Don’t get take-out, instead plan a quick and easy meal to prepare at home. There are tons of new products that allow you to prepare “made from scratch” meals quickly by offering you ingredients that come ready-to-cook in meal kits. Look for sales, coupons, and markdowns on these convenience products at the grocery store.
* Plan ahead so you don’t get caught needing to pick-up a meal while you are out and about. Pack a snack or a lunch to save you money!
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Featured Coupon from Coupons.com
Save $1.10 on Romano’s Macaroni Grill Dinner Kit
A better coupon than you’ll find in the Sunday paper coupon inserts! This is a dinner kit that includes what you need to make pasta and sauce – you just add chicken, oil, water and butter. My family loves the Chicken Marsala with Linguine – I love that this dinner kit is so quick to prepare! Yes, this is definitely a convenience product but ends up being a lot cheaper than actually going out to eat at Macaroni Grill. I won’t buy this product unless it’s on sale and I have a coupon. It’s on sale at Kroger for $4.69. When I use my coupon for $1.10 off that makes the final price $3.59 (a total savings of 28% off of full price). Don’t forget that you should be able to print this coupon twice!
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We don’t eat out much. Eating in is healthier, yummier, and more affordable.But I do need to get better about freezing a few meals for those nights when the cupboards are bare and inspiration is lacking. It’s so tempting to just call the local pizza delivery place on those nights…
How does cell fire work and can you combine both coupons?
Also, there is a coupon on cellfire for this product. You can get another $1 off! http://www.cellfire.com
I LOVE LOVE LOVE to eat out. Unfortunately the budget doesn’t allow for it. So last year we started using the envelope system for our monthly eating out. At the beginning of the month, I take out the allotted amount of cash for eating out (in tens) and put it in an envelope. Then when we go out to eat we grab a couple tens out of the envelope. This has really caused us to reevaluate our eating out when we only have X amt of dollars left for the month–where do we want to spend it? And it has saved us a great amount of money. I’m a reluctant convert, but I have to admit that menu planning has really saved us a lot of money on eating out, too. It used to come to the end of the day and I was fried and dinner wasn’t ready so I’d ask (uh, beg!) hubby to pick something up on the way home. Now that I have a plan (that’s flexible, mind you!), I’m not nearly as stressed and it’s a lot easier to get dinner on the table. And don’t forget about Heather’s Birthday list! :-)